Mayflies

Mayflies is an art installation which consists of a swarm of thousands of mayfly shapes cut out of white paper, each around 13 centimetres long from head to tail.

They are individually attached directly to the walls of the space in a swarm-like formation. All of the mayflies were hand-cut by myself, meaning that each pair is unique.

Mayflies are flying insects famed for their short adult life which in some species can be as short as a day, an hour or even a few minutes.

The art piece - Mayflies aims to encourage people to think about how they cherish their time. It is exhibited in places that are often overlooked in an effort to encourage people to take time to experience a space that they may have ordinarily passed by without a thought.

All the venues I have exhibited Mayflies in have had their own unique aspects and feel to them. The exhibitions at Rheged and Barnton Bunker are the most ambitious, they contained 7,000 and 10,000 Mayflies which is around double the size of any of the others.

I first started creating paper Mayfly installations in 2010 have since exhibited them in 9 places, each with hundreds or thousands of Mayflies made specifically for the venue.

Mayflies has been exhibited at;